Is The Lockheed SR 72 Son Of The Blackbird Already Flying?

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Traveling over our heads at hypersonic speeds beyond Mach 7, lies the future of spy plane technology. It can be anywhere in the world in one hour, enter any country unnoticed, and be out before their jets can even get into the sky.

This future plane doesn't need a pilot, flies twice as fast as the SR-71 blackbird, and further development has rumored that it will be equipped with hypersonic missiles.

and most shocking about this top-secret project, perhaps its even flying... today.

This is the son of the blackbird, the mysterious, SR-72.

Spy planes have always filled an important role in intelligence gathering. At the start, they were the only way to get a birds-eye view on what was going on over others' borders, and then even when satalights became more fesible, still had advantages. they are fast, can be deployed much quicker than orbital cameras, and can avoid being shot down.

The SR-71 Blackbird is commonly known as the most famous spy plane, and was during its operation, one of the fastest us aircraft in the air force.

But with the retirement of this older spy plane in 1998, the usa government was left with a problem. there was a gap in their ability to spy betweens py satalights and remote drones.

Enter the new version of the SR-71, called the son of the blackbird. This is what this top-secret project is all about.

Work on this project was announced to be started way back in 2007, although likely engineers at the Lockheed martin skunk works started research development years earlier. Initially, rumors were that they were working on a new aircraft that could fly Mach 6, up to 4,000 mph or 6400 k/h, at an altitude of 80,000 feet (24,400 m). This means this plane could reach anywhere in the world... in one hour.

to achieve this insane new speed, Lockheed is developing a special hybrid jet and rocket engine.

The challenge is to create an engine that can perform at all three speeds. The sr-72 is believed to fix this by having both a turbine engine for low speeds, and converting into a scramjet for high speeds. Both engines will have the same inlet and exhaust, but different airflows inside the aircraft. Lockheed is working with Aerojet Rocketdyne to develop this engine, called the turbine-based combined cycle propulsion system.

The aircraft will also need to be able to survive flying at such high speeds. Aerodynamic heating will cause massive gains in temperature, hot enough to melt convential aircraft materials. Thus this plane will be built from a special fabrication of metal and cermaic composites, like those used in the space shuttle.

Much of this research is based on the Hypersonic Techoloy vehicle 2, or HTV-2, that was developed in 2010 for the defense advanced research project agency.
Looking at this planes specks, it makes sense that any design should be built with the ability to strike targets using special hypersonic missiles.

“Hypersonic aircraft, coupled with hypersonic missiles, could penetrate denied airspace and strike at nearly any location across a continent in less than an hour,” said Brad Leland, Lockheed Martin program manager. “Speed is the next aviation advancement to counter emerging threats in the next several decades. The technology would be a game-changer in theatre, similar to how stealth is changing the battlespace today.”

The one issue is though that no such weapons exist yet.

Overall, Lockheed is confident that its conceptual SR-72 hypersonic plane will be able to reach mach 6, cost only around 1 billion and by fyling by 2025.

But you might notice that throughout this video i have said, future, or under development, but if this aircraft is following anything like the SR-71 development - then its already flying today.

This is where things get a little fuzzy

The original timescape for this project was that construction would begin in 2018, and that the prototype would fly in 2025 and be actively deployed by 2030 - but heres the funny thing, generally the us military is years ahead of what we know.

We know there are rumors of several other spy planes in active service, or various protoype stages, such as the Aurora or the black triangles. Whos to say that the SR-72, or at least a flying prototype version is not already in active service.

Do you really think that the US government would leave its spy plane defence or offense role, unfilled for the last 20 years? Well, i'll let you decide in the comments below.

As for the SR-72 progress, so far the US airforce is still deciding between it, and the Northrop RQ-180 drone - which has already flown and has greater stealth capabilities - although is not a hypersonic aircraft and thus built with conventional technologies.

It remains to be seen which project will be put into service - or which will ever be publically acknowledged.